FORMER International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has reportedly filed a $1 million (€782,000) countersuit against the New York hotel maid at the centre of sexual assault allegations.

Mr Strauss-Kahn has accused the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, of "knowingly and intentionally making a false report to law-enforcement authorities," the New York Post reported, citing court documents.

The countersuit lodged on Monday at Bronx Supreme Court – a year after the original allegations saw him jailed and later released - claims the maid's "malicious and wanton false allegation" undermined Mr Strauss-Kahn's reputation.

It also damaged "other professional opportunities," said the filing, without specifying political ambitions that were rocked by the scandal, the Post said.

Before the allegations brought him down, Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was seen as a champion of France's Socialist Party and was expected to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the Presidential election.

Instead Francois Hollande, who was sworn in today, stood against Mr Sarkozy.

His legal team was able to undermine the maid's criminal case last year, but the once-high-flying statesman has been helpless against a US judge who rejected his claim to diplomatic immunity and ordered a civil trial to go ahead.

Meanwhile in recent weeks Strauss-Kahn has been implicated in a prostitution ring probe in northern France, although he has insisted that he was unaware that women at the numerous orgies he took part in were prostitutes.